You need to tell the reader 3 things, with 2 other optional things:
- (Optional) Why did the researchers do the study?
- What did they do?
- What did they find?
- What does it mean?
- (Optional) How does it relate to the essay question?
Examples:
“DeNora and Belcher (2020) were interested in the effect of music in clothes shops [why they did the study]. They recruited people to wear concealed recording devices when they went clothes shopping, and talk out loud about what they were doing and how they felt [what they did]. They found that different shops played different music that appealed to different categories of consumers, and that the music did have an effect on how the shoppers felt [what they found].”
“The Department for Education collected data about 18 year old school leaver in England and what happened to them next [what they did]. Children who had been entitled to free school meals because their family’s income was low were less likely to go on to higher education (46% compared to 51%) and more likely to go into further education (10% compared to 7%) [what they found]. This suggests that income inequality in childhood has long term effects on a young person’s life chances by influencing their educational opportunities [what it means and how it relates to the essay question].”
“Carraher et al. (1985) asked young people in Brazil to do maths problems on the streets where they made their living by selling things, and they also asked them to do maths problems in a school-like setting [what they did]. The young people got almost all of the maths problems right in the streets, but got most of them wrong in the school setting [what they found]. Carraher et al. suggested that the difference was that the children used different symbolic systems in the two different settings, and that the symbolic system used makes a big difference to getting the right answers [what it means].”
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References
Carraher, T.N., Carraher, D.W. and Schliemann, A.D., 1985. Mathematics in the streets and in schools. British journal of developmental psychology, 3(1), pp.21-29.
DeNora, T. and Belcher, S., 2000. ‘When you’re trying something on you picture yourself in a place where they are playing this kind of music’–musically sponsored agency in the British clothing retail sector. The Sociological Review, 48(1), pp.80-101.
Department for Education (DfE) (2018) Destinations of Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 Students, England, 2016-2017. Department for Education [online]. Available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/748199/Destinations_Main_Text_2017.pdf
Melanie Rimmer 